Publications

Pressure Driven Microflow Through a Double-T Metering Section

Luke Hunter
Albert P. Pisano
Liwei Lin
2003

Many assay devices require metering a calibrated amount of sample foranalysis. As mobile/handheld assay devices become closer to realization, power usage becomes more critical for all system components. Current designs utilize electrokinetically driven flow and well-defined channel geome...

Microfluid Integrated Nano-Scale Biological Cell Probes

Jesse Herrick
Albert P. Pisano
Luke P. Lee
Lydia L. Sohn
2004

Standard techniques for biological research have proven extremely informative in the past, and will most likely see a continued use in years to come. However, with the correct implementation of some of todays leading technologies on the micro and nano scale, biological research could potentially see extraordinary advances in the...

The Motion of a Pointer Tip Driven by Two Linked Electrostatic Comb Drives

Ronald Fox
1991

In this report, the motion of two linked electrostatic comb drives and the corresponding displacement of the tip of a centrally mounted pointer is examined. Based on the Bulirsch-Stoer numerical method with modified midpoint...

A Curved Teeth Flexible Comb Drive for Electrostatic Microgrippers

Ken Chow
1992

The recently developed microgripper driven by a flexible, electrostatic comb drive has been shown to seize micron-sized objects. However, the comb drive utilized by this microgripper is highly inefficient in developing gripping force and is designed with elementary, straight...

SIlicon Photonic Devices for Optoelectronic Integrated Circuits

Jason Tien
Ming C. Wu
Constance Chang-Hasnain
Xiang Zhang
2009

Electronic and photonic integrated circuits use optics to overcome bottlenecks of microelectronics in bandwidth and power consumption. Silicon photonic devices such as optical modulators, filters, switches, and photodetectors have being developed for integration with electronics based on existing complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits. An important building block of photonic devices is the optical microresonator.

On-chip whispering-gallery-mode optical resonators such as microdisks, microtoroids, and microrings have very small footprint, and thus...

Strong Optical Injection Locking of Edge-Emitting Lasers and Its Applications

Hyuk-Kee Sung
Ming C. Wu
Constance Chang-Hasnain
Costas P. Grigoropoulos
2006

Semiconductor lasers are essential components that enable high-speed long-haul communication and have been widely used for various applications in photonics technology. Semiconductor lasers under optical injection locking exhibit superior performance over free-running lasers and provide useful applications not achievable through the free-running lasers. The performance of injection-locked lasers has been found to be significantly improved with stronger injection.

In this dissertation, the characteristics and applications of semiconductor lasers under strong...

Engineering Optical Antenna for Efficient Local Field Enhancement

Tae Joon Seok
Ming C. Wu
Eli Yablonovich
Luke P. Lee
2012

Optical antennas have been widely used for variety of applications such as sensitive photodetection, efficient light emission, high-resolution imaging, heat-assisted magnetic recording, and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) because they can capture and focus propagating electromagnetic energy into subdiffraction-limited areas and vice versa. However, widespread application of optical antennas has been limited due to lack of appropriate methods for uniform and large area fabrication of antennas, as well as difficulty in achieving an efficient design with small mode volume (gap...

Integrated MEMS Technologies for Adaptive Optics

Blake Lin
Richard S. Muller
Tsu-Jae King Liu
Liwei Lin
2008

Image resolutions of modern optical systems are many times limited by wavefront aberrations due to turbulence in the optical media. Adaptive Optics (AO) is a technology that utilizes deformable mirrors (DM) to correct the wavefront distortion, thereby enhancing the image resolution. In this research, we investigate the design and fabrication of micromechanical-deformable-mirror arrays for AO applications. The mirror arrays are produced using surface micromachining techniques developed for the fabrication of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS).

Because many AO...

Material Science and Device Physics of Semiconductors on Arbitrary Substrates

Rehan Kapadia
Ali Javey
Sayeef Salahuddin
Daryl Chrzan
2013

Since the beginnings of the semiconductor revolution, device engineering and material development have been deeply interconnected. Innovations in one invariably spurred development in the other. One of the most important current challenges are developing techniques which enable deposition of materials on arbitrary substrates and the design constraints of devices fabricated via these techniques. This thesis focuses on furthering the materials development-device design cycle for three techniques: (i) epitaxial lift-off, (ii) nanowire growth via the vapor-liquid-solid growth mode, and (...

Position Sensing for Electrostatic Micropositioners

Naiyavudhi Wongkomet
Bernhard E. Boser
Paul R. Gray
Albert A. Pisano
1998
This research investigates the design of capacitive position sensing circuits for electrostatic micropositioners. The goals of this investigation are to understand the interaction among the micropositioners, the driving circuits, and the position sensing ...